HAMSTER TURBO Discussion

I use signal start to follow this signal. And I don't need to keep my account turned on at all times for copying trades. I don't understand why you need a VPS in this setup?

gammag posted:

gammag posted:
Hi all,

I also observed a huge slippage today. My second position closed at 1.13878 while Eleni's closed 1.13923.
Luckily I didn't experience any physical loss, I'm still in the observing phase, I am using demo account at Live15 with 10k$ virtual money for a bit more than a week now.

Since just yesterday I activated MQL5 VPS at my demo account I have a general question:

Eleni, anybody,
what is actually more important? have VPS the same as you (MQL5 virtual VPS), or that I have VPS closer to my broker (IC Markets) (e.g. ICMarkets offer VPS with <0.5ms latency, while MQL5 has about 9ms latency to ICMarkets).

My understanding of trade copying is as follows:

<source/initiating action> <receiver>
VPS of signal provider <----------------> VPS of subscriber
              | |
              | |
Signal provider's broker Broker of subscriber


I hope my 'drawing' is understandable :-)
I mean that the source is actually the VPS of signal provider (with running EA or manual trading initiated there). From there it is transferred to the broker of signal's provider and at the same time (or just afterwards), the signal is transferred FROM THE signal provider's VPS to VPSs of subscribers from where the signal is transferred then to the respective brokers. There is NO DIRECT CONNECTION between signal provider's broker and subscriber's broker.

is my understanding correct?

if yes it would mean that most important is the low latency between both VPSs. Having the same broker as signal provider is only of second importance as long as connection between the VPS of subscriber to his broker has ultra low latency.

if I'm wrong please explain me how it works in practice and where which action is initiated so that I can make an as good as possible setup to minimize slippage (of course it's clear to me that I cannot avoid it completely, but I want to make it as good as it gets).

thanks in advance for helping me understanding that.

I would appreciate if anybody could help me too clarify/understand these aspects.

Thanks!

By refering to one of the losing trades recently.

02.15.2019 02:10 02.15.2019 15:30 EURUSD Buy 0.72 -150.30 149.90 1.12940 1.12352 -58.8 -380.78 13h 20m -42.37%

The SL does not serve its purpose as protecting the account.
-58.8 pips losing -380.78. losing 42.37%. SL set as -150.30 pips. would be equivalent to losing -973.32, which is losing -108.30%, account burnt.

I am approaching it mathematically. correct me if i am wrong.

My question is what is the true purpose of SL in this system? thank you.

Sorry, if my question was not formulated clearly. My question was not about demo account, it was about the mechanism of signal copying as such and which part of the connection is more important.
I will go on live account next days and therefore I would like to understand.

Hello forexnik,

if you use a MQL5 VPS, you do not need to tick the: Enable realtime signal subscription, after the synchronization. Check my synchronization guide for details: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PR-9pmuF7K3JAKnPds31yiH8Y2r7IW26/view

Hello addie, you do not need a VPS when copying through SignalStart.

Hello PipsNewbie, the hard 150 pip SL is there for the broker and other market participants to see. We are using a -85% margin stop out level as out real SL level.

Hello gammag, I undrstand your concenrs, but you can't compare live and demo account copying results in order to make conclusions.

Hi Eleni
Why signal start often leaves your account in 'Rank pending'?
I tried to ask them but they don't give me a response to. Do you know something?

addie posted:
I use signal start to follow this signal. And I don't need to keep my account turned on at all times for copying trades. I don't understand why you need a VPS in this setup?

gammag posted:

gammag posted:
Hi all,

I also observed a huge slippage today. My second position closed at 1.13878 while Eleni's closed 1.13923.
Luckily I didn't experience any physical loss, I'm still in the observing phase, I am using demo account at Live15 with 10k$ virtual money for a bit more than a week now.

Since just yesterday I activated MQL5 VPS at my demo account I have a general question:

Eleni, anybody,
what is actually more important? have VPS the same as you (MQL5 virtual VPS), or that I have VPS closer to my broker (IC Markets) (e.g. ICMarkets offer VPS with <0.5ms latency, while MQL5 has about 9ms latency to ICMarkets).

My understanding of trade copying is as follows:

<source/initiating action> <receiver>
VPS of signal provider <----------------> VPS of subscriber
              | |
              | |
Signal provider's broker Broker of subscriber


I hope my 'drawing' is understandable :-)
I mean that the source is actually the VPS of signal provider (with running EA or manual trading initiated there). From there it is transferred to the broker of signal's provider and at the same time (or just afterwards), the signal is transferred FROM THE signal provider's VPS to VPSs of subscribers from where the signal is transferred then to the respective brokers. There is NO DIRECT CONNECTION between signal provider's broker and subscriber's broker.

is my understanding correct?

if yes it would mean that most important is the low latency between both VPSs. Having the same broker as signal provider is only of second importance as long as connection between the VPS of subscriber to his broker has ultra low latency.

if I'm wrong please explain me how it works in practice and where which action is initiated so that I can make an as good as possible setup to minimize slippage (of course it's clear to me that I cannot avoid it completely, but I want to make it as good as it gets).

thanks in advance for helping me understanding that.

I would appreciate if anybody could help me too clarify/understand these aspects.

Thanks!

In Signalstart Setup you don't need VPS, I actually even started with that, but I don't like the fact that you need to
a) pay monthly fee of 25$
b) signal subscription is also a bit more expensive.
c) and (just subjective argument) I like more the idea of signal management integrated into the Metatrader environment, where I can control everything on my own (e.g. run EA which watches over the drawdown of the account, etc.)

So once again, my question is related to
a) how signal copying is actually performed in practice (is my image correct?)
b) which connections are the most critical for the performance.

Basically, in my setup I need to choose between
1. VIrtual VPS running through MQL5
2. VPS very close to my broker
In both cases broker is ICMarkets (same as Eleni).

I'm looking not only for an answer 'do it like this', I would like also to understand why.
Or is my question too difficult? I cannot imagine that nobody looked into that before me

eleanna74 posted:
Hello gammag, I undrstand your concenrs, but you can't compare live and demo account copying results in order to make conclusions.

Eleni,

My question is about live account. Can you please read again, I don't know how else I can formulate it.

gammag posted:
Hi all,

I also observed a huge slippage today. My second position closed at 1.13878 while Eleni's closed 1.13923.
Luckily I didn't experience any physical loss, I'm still in the observing phase, I am using demo account at Live15 with 10k$ virtual money for a bit more than a week now.

Since just yesterday I activated MQL5 VPS at my demo account I have a general question:

Eleni, anybody,
what is actually more important? have VPS the same as you (MQL5 virtual VPS), or that I have VPS closer to my broker (IC Markets) (e.g. ICMarkets offer VPS with <0.5ms latency, while MQL5 has about 9ms latency to ICMarkets).

My understanding of trade copying is as follows:

<source/initiating action> <receiver>
VPS of signal provider <----------------> VPS of subscriber
              | |
              | |
Signal provider's broker Broker of subscriber


I hope my 'drawing' is understandable :-)
I mean that the source is actually the VPS of signal provider (with running EA or manual trading initiated there). From there it is transferred to the broker of signal's provider and at the same time (or just afterwards), the signal is transferred FROM THE signal provider's VPS to VPSs of subscribers from where the signal is transferred then to the respective brokers. There is NO DIRECT CONNECTION between signal provider's broker and subscriber's broker.

is my understanding correct?

if yes it would mean that most important is the low latency between both VPSs. Having the same broker as signal provider is only of second importance as long as connection between the VPS of subscriber to his broker has ultra low latency.

if I'm wrong please explain me how it works in practice and where which action is initiated so that I can make an as good as possible setup to minimize slippage (of course it's clear to me that I cannot avoid it completely, but I want to make it as good as it gets).

thanks in advance for helping me understanding that.

I would appreciate if anybody could help me too clarify/understand these aspects.

Thanks!
First off Eleni is correct about 'Live' & 'Demo' accounts. Now you are asking how to make slippage go in your favour? You are correct in the way you receive the signal off Eleni, unless you use 'SignalStart' and no VPS is required as they use their own API.

Yes low latency is important, but you cannot avoid 'Slippage' due to market conditions etc.

Of course you want to have slippage down to a minimum, well so does all of 'Eleni's' subscribers, the problem is that is not always possible. Slippage can go in your favour sometimes and against, that is just the way 'Forex' works and other trading.


Happy trading to you all.


Stephen Smith.

Well said Stephen, I think you've answered gammag's question.

Hello Gammag, in order to minimize slippage, choose one of my suggested setups:

ICMarkets 1:500 leverage (minimum) ECN account with live01, live04, live06, live08, live09, live11, live12 server or

Pepperstone 1:500 leverage Razor account with Edge02 or Edge04 server.

good morning Stephen, good morning Eleni,

thank you for the confirmation that my understandning of the communication is correct.

the reason of asking was not to make slippage going in my favour. it was just to decide the best setup.

if the communication is like I described, it is actually not clear if the best setup for signal receiver is to use MQL5 VPS or ICMarkets VPS. In the first case, the latency between VPSs are minimized (since both are MQL5), but you have some latency between VPS and ICMarkets (10ms). In the second case you have some latency (not sure how high) between MQL5 VPS and ICMarkets VPS, and very low (0.5ms) latency between ICMarkets VPS and ICMarkets.

I guess I need to try both and see if it makes a difference or if it is the same. I tried already the first option, so I need to try out the second way and see if it works better/worse.

It is also interesting, because if I'm right in my understanding, it means that it is not necessarily optimal in terms of OVERALL LATENCY to have the same VPS and even broker as signal provider (!). If the connection between MQL5 VPS of Eleni and some other broker's VPS is faster then 10ms. (This could actually help if all LiveXX servers are overloaded at the time of Eleni's trade).

sorry if my post is too technical, I'm engineer, maybe this is the reason why people were confused by the question ;-)

I will try to ask simpler questions next time ;-)

eleanna74 posted:
Hello Gammag, in order to minimize slippage, choose one of my suggested setups:

ICMarkets 1:500 leverage (minimum) ECN account with live01, live04, live06, live08, live09, live11, live12 server or

Pepperstone 1:500 leverage Razor account with Edge02 or Edge04 server.

thanks, I have live account at ICMarkets live15 server right now. I guess it's a bit of experimenting needed, I might ask ICMarkets support to move it to other server, for now I will see if live15 does the job.

@gammag posted:

In Signalstart Setup you don't need VPS, I actually even started with that, but I don't like the fact that you need to
a) pay monthly fee of 25$
b) signal subscription is also a bit more expensive.
c) and (just subjective argument) I like more the idea of signal management integrated into the Metatrader environment, where I can control everything on my own (e.g. run EA which watches over the drawdown of the account, etc.)

So once again, my question is related to
a) how signal copying is actually performed in practice (is my image correct?)
b) which connections are the most critical for the performance.

Basically, in my setup I need to choose between
1. VIrtual VPS running through MQL5
2. VPS very close to my broker
In both cases broker is ICMarkets (same as Eleni).

I'm looking not only for an answer 'do it like this', I would like also to understand why.
Or is my question too difficult? I cannot imagine that nobody looked into that before me

Hi gammag,
I'm also currently looking to subscribe to these signals directly in MT4 via mql5.com using an IC Markets (ICM) account as I believe you are.
I too have tried SignalStart before, but wasn't happy with their service as they wouldn't answer any questions I had about what I was physically getting for the $25/m in terms of networking/hardware, and prefer having control of my trading terminal for the same reasons you stated.
So, back to the question...

From what I can gather, in spite of MetaQuotes claims here https://www.mql5.com/en/vps/best-forex-vps-technology where they try to make out that their servers are somehow magically configured to run much better than anyone else's, it's likely to be much the same for any VPS with a similar physical location to theirs.
I you enter 'ICMarkets-Live01' in the search here https://www.mql5.com/en/vps you can see a map showing the MetaQuotes server you'll connect to.
The map confirms IC Markets server to be located within Equinix NY4 at 755 Secaucus Rd, Secaucus, NJ.
https://www.equinix.com/locations/americas-colocation/united-states-colocation/new-york-data-centers/ny4/
Doing some detective work using Google Maps we can find that the MetaQuotes servers are located in a building at 10 Enterprise Ave N, Secaucus, NJ, 1.3km away.
https://goo.gl/maps/8imXaCCDF3v
Unfortunately I couldn't find any direct reference to a hosting provider at that address so I remain dubious as to it's legitimacy...
Also given the latency I see on my own server and it being slightly closer to Equinix NY4 than MetaQuotes server I have to seriously question their claim of 2.35ms as you typically need to be co-located to see latencies that low and by their own admission they are not.

Another thing to possibly consider is the use of an ICM ECN account where all orders are forwarded to the Interbank market and thus incur a full networking round trip through ICM's liquidity providers and back for placement.
If you were to use one of ICM's 'Standard' accounts this could play out differently *if* (not guaranteed in any way) ICM internalize your order via their own market making, which would mean the trade never has to leave their servers and would be executed as fast as their systems can process it.
Though you've got potentially higher spread you'll have to cover, plus the potential threat of them stop-hunting your orders.

I haven't tried a MetaQuotes VPS as I since got my own dedicated server in NYC with US Dedicated https://billing.usdedicated.com/aff.php?aff=98 where I get ~10-15ms latency to IC Markets.
Their servers are located at 2 Emerson Ln, Secaucus, NJ, 1.2km away from Equinix NY4.
https://goo.gl/maps/C1PFqpTEe362
I tried a VPS a few years back and found that it struggled to work with just a few EA's running which is what I needed at the time, so got a dedicated server and haven't looked back.
Though if all you want to do is subscribe to signals then any VPS should be well fast enough.
The trick with US Dedicated is that it's much cheaper than those 'Forex specific' VPS/Dedicated server providers because it is an unmanaged service, so if something goes wrong you can't fix yourself you might have to trigger a remote reinstall of the OS, though it's pretty simple to install a few MT4/5 terminals via remote login...
Given it's about 1/4 the price of those managed services I'll take the small risk of that inconvenience.
My own server has never had an issue as it runs Windows Server OS which is designed to run continuously, unlike Win XP/7/10 which will crap out after a while.
The one advantage with the managed Forex specific servers is they are often located in either Equinix NY4 or LD5 data centres, thus the substantially higher prices, so it's possible to get 0-5ms latency to your broker, but I think you want to be doing some serious HFT trading to really see the benefit of this given the large additional cost.

Personally I suspect that given most IC Markets servers show slippage results of <=3.0 on mql5.com the difference would be negligible, and that the slippage >3.0 on IC Markets servers is most likely from people doing dumb setups on their home PC with 100's of ms latencies.
Either that, or the MetaQuotes VPS service is rubbish and that's the reason for the accounts that show high slippage, though realistically this is less likely than dumb setups.

If you search around there are EA's designed to test order execution, so you could run one of these on each setup to get some idea of how each realistically perform with your broker.
Ultimately it's one of those things you just have to test to see how it actually behaves as trying to predict the behaviour of such complex networking traversals is nigh on impossible.
You can get a free 24hr trial of the MetaQuotes VPS so might as well give it a go then try an external provider for a month and see which is better.
Personally, I'd just go with my own server, then if slippage is a problem try the MQ VPS to see if it solves the problem.

A final element to throw a spanner in the works is whether mql5.com Signals can be internally processed by the broker's MetaTrader servers, or they still have to do a round trip to a MetaQuotes server somewhere to complete each order...? Probably a good question to put to IC Markets and/or MetaQuotes.
I found a few references to network communication in this article https://www.mql5.com/en/articles/618 which indicates it's the two broker's MT servers in direct connection, but with these guys you can never be certain what they say is correct/true...

1. On the Provider's side, a trader or an Expert Advisor performs trading operations in his/her own terminal.
2. This information is sent to the broker's trading server where the Signals Provider is served.
3. MetaTrader Signal Server connects to the Provider's broker using specified Investor password and receives all trading operations in real time.
4. The Subscriber's terminal is constantly connected to the necessary MetaTrader Signal Server. Therefore, it receives all trading operations instantly.
5. The Subscriber's terminal performs a trading operation on its broker's server.
Please note that Signals Providers and Subscribers operate without the knowledge of the broker negotiating directly between each other. Both participants can be served by completely different brokers.



😉

! The profit is only 801%!

! The profit is only 379%!

Maybe the profit is 0% ???